Dustin Pedroia: Future Red Sox coach?

Dustin Pedroia joined the Boston Red Sox for a few days at the start of spring training this year. After a 14-year career with the team, Pedroia was making his first appearance to camp as a non-player. Instead, he was asked by Alex Cora to be a "guest instructor", which may or may not serve as a steppingstone to a post-playing career in professional baseball.

Pedroia was highly accomplished as a player for the Red Sox. He won the Rookie of the Year award in 2007. He followed it up with winning MVP in 2008. When he hung up the spikes after the 2019 season, he did so as a 3-time World Series champion who also had 4 All-Star nods and 4 Gold Glove awards to his name. Not too shabby for someone whose scouting report coming out of college said that his "tools are below-average across the board".

Many of the intangible qualities that Pedroia brought to the table as a player would naturally translate to his success as a big-league coach one day. His pre-draft scouting report started out pretty harshly, but it proceeded to say that Pedroia's "tireless work ethic" and "exceptional sense of the game" put him into a class of players that surpassed the limitations of his physical stature or abilities. And boy, that part could not have been more spot-on.

When asked about a potential role with the Red Sox for Dustin Pedroia at some point down the line, manager Alex Cora far from ruled it out. According to Chris Cotillo of MassLive, Cora said that they "will see what happens in the future".

Considering that it was Cora's request for Pedroia to help out this spring in the first place, that answer is certainly not a "no". But would Pedroia want to take on more responsibility in an official capacity?

In short, not yet. The longer answer makes a lot of sense, but it certainly doesn't rule anything out for the future:

"But as far as like a major role with the organization, I’m not there yet. My kids are young, so I’m still focused on them and helping them out before I jump into anything like that."

- Dustin Pedroia

We'll see what happens going forward, but Dustin Pedroia is definitely on the short list of recent Red Sox greats like Jason Varitek, David Ortiz, and Pedro Martinez, whose presence and guidance has had (and will continue to have) a significant impact on the team and organization at-large.